On the philosophy of monster design in the playtest

[jadrax]

Cool monster powers mean more when every monster doesn't have 4.

I like the trend I'm seeing with rank-and-file monsters having one clear schtick, and their leaders getting 1-2 additional abilities.

Yeah, to me that's the ideal balance tbh. A solid racial ability that given them character (such as the kobold's bonus when outnumbering an opponent) plus one or two individuals with other powers.

To me that is giving you flavour, tactical diversity and ease of running.

 

[jshaft37]

Cool monster powers mean more when every monster doesn't have 4.

I like the trend I'm seeing with rank-and-file monsters having one clear schtick, and their leaders getting 1-2 additional abilities.

Agreed, and I think the Monster Vault and Threats to the Nentir Vale did a better job of giving monsters 1 or 2 cool powers (special traits) rather than a whole host. I would like to see that monsters and NPCs have different powers than PCs though, just so they remain unique and interesting for the players.

 

[Kichwas]

I think the issue is that a little complexity adds a decent amount of TIME to resolve. One of the primary goals of this edition appears to be trying to change the average combat time back to what it was in 1e or 2e(i.e. 15-20 minutes).
. . .
If you start adding in a bunch of abilities that modify the battlefield and add modifiers to people, it takes time to adjudicate those and increases combat time.

Having GM'd a 12 session of Champions that was just one single fight - which did not finish at the end (we just gave up and said: Ok, those 4 guys just up and fall down, its over)...

The more tactical the game gets, the more variety, the longer it can take to resolve. And this can get monstrous.

Sadly this is a BIG sacrifice though. The lack of all those tactical options can make a game feel amazingly bland... and old D&D was horridly bland in play compared to old Champions or Fantasy Hero or even Runequest.

You don't need the tactical complexity of Hero system, but that doesn't mean going all the way to the other extreme and just rolling a d20 and a d8 and then tallying down a number before moving to the next guy...

Much as 4E can frustrate some of us, one of its design goals was right: A lot of players now are coming in from computer games and online games where they are used to a certain pace and a series of options on choices made quickly within that pace.

If I can find more enjoyment tanking a night of Dragon Soul in WoW, despite doing it over and over again every week, than from playing out a deep story RPG with a combat scene now and then... then there's a problem somewhere in the design of that RPG.

Blanding down the mechanics in the interests of time is a viable plan - but you've got to be careful not to go too far... either way...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Blanding down the mechanics in the interests of time is a viable plan - but you've got to be careful not to go too far... either way...

And yet a lot of people are used to the combat lengths of 1e and 2e, having never played and edition after those.

I can tell you from experience that I've never finished a 4e combat in less than 45 minutes. Most of them take an hour to an hour and a half.

That's fine maybe once a session or once every two sessions, but if you have 5 hours to play in and you fight 3 combats, that means you have maybe an hour for role playing and exploration in a session.

I remember back to our 2e games where we used to have 7 battles in that same time AND still spend way more time on exploration. On the other hand here was no way to make a battle into an epic 1 and a half hour boss fight in that edition at all.

I believe there is only one way to get back to the speed of combats in 2e is to reduce the complexity of MOST monsters and save complexity for rare encounters.

 

[slobster]

I really liked 4E monsters, but a lot of the people here are making a lot of sense. Standard minion types should probably be a lot simpler, with maybe 1 simple special ability to differentiate them. That leaves complexity available for those big fights that you want to be dramatic and memorable. And of course even vanilla mooks can be interesting with enough creativity and/or preparation.

Speeding up combat is a big part of what I want from DDN, and if I have to sacrifice some complexity in your average monster's statblock, so be it.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I favor Next's simpler monsters over 4es power heavy monsters. After a long 4e campaign I never want to see a non-solo monster with more than 1 or 2 powers that do something more than just damage. It's just too much to keep track of and adds to the slowing down of 4es combats. As a DM and player, I found most DMs, including me, ignored many monster powers. It just took way too long every initiative to look over a monsters stat block and figure out the best power and recharge others. Just not worth the pain.

I Have enjoyed playing 4e since it arrived, but I so agree with you. 1 or 2 cool powers (maybe only 1 recharge power) rather than a load of so-so powers, sounds so much better. I would like 5eNext to have cool monsters, yet I prefer if those monsters can be rather simple & easy to run.

 

[Incenjucar]

As a 4E fan, I'm with you on not having a huge number of powers on monsters unless they're a big deal - I tend to pick one crazy monster and some simpler monsters for each encounter.

That said, some 5E monsters have so many powers that they need to rely on spell lists. So. Yeah.

 

[Blackwarder]

That's a bit of a tangent but does anyone else feel the monster XP values are way too high?

Warder

 

[mlund]

That's a bit of a tangent but does anyone else feel the monster XP values are way too high?

No. Look at the XP to Next Level area on any of the pre-gens. It takes twice as much XP to make level 2 in this version than 4E and the scale escalates much more steeply.

- Marty Lund

 

[Blackwarder]

No. Look at the XP to Next Level area on any of the pre-gens. It takes twice as much XP to make level 2 in this version than 4E and the scale escalates much more steeply.

- Marty Lund

Yeah but having such high XP values make the monsters the reward instead of the advarseries, I'm not saying that an orce should give 15xp but 125xp seems too much.

But tbh, it's not that important in this stage of the playtest so I'm not going to bitch and whine about it.

Warder